The explosive growth of public and private information networks has revolutionized the way information is stored, accessed and used. The Internet, in particular, holds promise of becoming the ultimate repository, publishing medium, and distribution engine for all kinds of information and electronic or digital content.
Information products such as books, music and movies, once represented in a digital format are accessed on a computer-based system having the capability to recreate (read, display, or playback) the digital content. Digital information products, on one hand, offer some inherent advantages over traditional mediums of representation such as paper, film and analog tape media; on the other hand, they also pose some formidable content protection challenges and security threats compared to their physical counterparts due to certain inherent properties of digital content:
(a) A physical artifact such as a paper book or analog tape can be shared only when the owner parts away from his or her possession and loans it out to a singular person at a time. However, a digital copy can be readily distributed while the owner remains in possession of the original at all times.
(b) A physical artifact requires physical delivery of the object to another user and the traditional impediments of time, distance and costs are involved in sharing a physical artifact. Any digital information product can be delivered or shared across the globe via the Internet with anyone having access to the World Wide Web. Thus, physical distance is obliterated over the Internet.
(c) Digital content does not have physical weight. However, it needs to be stored on either physical media or on computer hardware having storage and/or memory capabilities.
(d) Duplication of a paper book or analog tape involves duplication costs and some deterioration in quality over successive generations of copies However, in the case of digital content, identical-to-original copies can be generated without a loss in quality and mass-distributed with the simplicity of a mouse click. In other words, there is no loss of fidelity or deterioration in quality of display or playback across generations of copies. In most instances it is almost impossible to differentiate a digital copy from a digital original.
(e) Mass distribution of a physical artifact such as a paper book, tape, cassette etc. requires considerable resources including space, equipment, infrastructure, people and money. In the case of digital content multiple copies of an information product need not be stored separately, for mass distribution, and can be generated upon demand using a personal computer. Thus, the costs of duplication, reproduction, dissemination and distribution of digital content are considerably reduced compared to traditional methods of printing, publishing and recording. The cost of carrying one copy of a digital work is practically no different than carrying a large number of copies of the same digital work.
The inherent characteristics of digital content coupled with the networking power of the Internet pose several challenges in distributing and selling information products. Fundamentally, the problem is that any transaction relating to providing access to an information product or digital content invariably involves copying. In fact, computer programs are run by copying them from disk/storage to memory (RAM, or random access memory); and, web pages are viewed by copying them from a remote computer to a local machine or other display/playback device(s).
The seller's dilemma, from a commercial standpoint, is that even prior to selling, digital content has to be “offered for sale or purchase evaluation.” Once the content is offered for sale it can be readily duplicated and distributed. Thus, even when access is provided to digital content for examination, preview, or purchase evaluation purposes the same information can be copied and distributed without rewarding or compensating the content publisher or creator. If the seller or distributor adopts a restrictive approach for protecting content prior to its sale it does not facilitate the selling process, as a purchaser characteristically desires to at least examine the goods prior to purchasing them.
In addition, the very act of selling requires the seller to deliver a copy of the digital work to the buyer, which can be read, played, enjoyed and also readily copied and mass-distributed. In fact, each new sales transaction can adversely affect future sales as it increases the statistical probability of unauthorized mass distribution. Even in the case of encrypted content distribution schemes content is protected only until purchased. Once purchased and decrypted the content can be redistributed in a non-protected format. Secondary distribution of encrypted content in a non-protected form is a primary problem for content owners and distributors.
These inherent characteristics of digital content and the increasing ease with which intellectual property (IP) can be represented, stored, replicated, and mass distributed, without payment of due consideration, are issues of great concern to the content creators, publishers and distributors. Any unauthorized distribution of digital works results in a loss of revenue to the content provider or publisher and an unpaid royalty to the author or creator. Unauthorized distribution of analog content, such as—sharing of books, music and movies stored on traditional analog media such as paper, audio and video tapes has existed for a long time but has been mostly confined to an individual's circle of influence. In contrast, unauthorized distribution of digital content can be significantly more damaging as identical-to-original illegal copies can be made readily available over the Internet and distributed en masse. The legal precedent established by the ruling against Napster—the song-swapping website—shows that a wide spread duplication and unauthorized dissemination of digital content through a widely used public medium, such as the Internet, jeopardizes the Intellectual Property (IP) ownership rights of authors, artists, musicians, recording studios and content providers.
Unauthorized distribution is not merely an economic or revenue problem for the content distributor but affects the entire society. The economic rewards to the content creators and distributors provide the incentive for continuation of the innovation cycle and fostering further creation of new works benefiting society as a whole. Unrewarded distribution of digital works is not conducive to further creation of digital works which, the founding fathers of the US constitution aimed at encouraging by empowering the law-makers—“to promote the progress of science and the useful arts by securing to authors and inventors for limited times exclusive rights in their respective writings and discoveries.”
Despite the numerous advantages offered by digital content, representing content or IP in a digital form is not an end in itself; it can only serve the broad interests when the digital representation does not undermine or otherwise dilute the time-limited monopoly granted to the authors or creators of the content by the US Constitution. In order to preserve the commercial value of information products and provide continued incentive to content creators for expanding the public domain of ideas, information, creative works and technological innovation—the economic interests of content creators and publishers must be protected.